If you don’t count the works that were not supposed to be mine but when it all of a sudden became mine three precious days had passed and there were only two days left to work on it.

If you don’t count the general assholery that’s thrown over the wall to my cubicle.

If you don’t count wolfing down the rest of the Sookie Stackhouse True Blood Series because 1) I needed to escape reality so much that even blogging and twittering would not do, 2) the sex and the description of it just gets hotter and hotter between Sookie and Eric, and 3) I believe I have developed an addiction to voyeurism.

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Nuthin’ much. Really.

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I'm going to Disney World y'all. No. Not really. I've always wanted to say that.

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I suspect that Dilbert has been following me around at work otherwise how can every single one of these recent comics be so accurate in telling what I am going through??!!

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Oh, yeah. I realized that using the time it took me to work on the picture of me announcing my trip to Dilbert World, I could have written a better post. Shut up. Thank you. xxoo

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She did not want to come back the last time she was there.

She wanted to stay home. Home.

When she was there by herself, she was not a mother. She was not a wife. She was herself.

More enticingly, she was her younger self. She was a daughter. She was the much adored and lauded miracle child. The family legend.

The one who would be could have been “The Doctor”. The real kind.

She realized much to her sadness and guilt that she has not been a daughter since 1993 when she left home for graduate school. The first time she went home, she brought her American boyfriend with her.

She stopped being just a daughter to her family. She has never been back by herself ever since.

When she went home by herself, everybody treated her as if she had just left and then returned. They treated her as if she were only 24, how old she was when she left.

Time stopped.

It was disorienting.  A discontium of time and space.

You are here in the U.S. and 24 hours later, you are in a different world. The same skyscrappers. The same modern technologies. Cars. Material goods. Yet different.

Time also reversed. Her family treated her as if she were only 24. She was a daughter again. The unwed daughter. The pearl in their palms.

She looked at her parents who have aged more since she saw them last. She wondered how she could have done this to them. Rid them of their daughter. All these years of separation they seem almost like strangers, yet she remembered. It’s as if life in between simply were not there. She left. She came home. As simple as that.

Now she’s 24.

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She has a pretty face. In 3 D. She knows it. Yet nowadays she does not like to look at herself in the pictures. She dares not search for her own face in them. She cannot recognize herself in any of them because the image she has of herself inside her head is different from the face that is staring back at her.

It’s like whenever you hear the playback of a recording of your own voice, you are  startled by the strangeness of it.

Is this really how I sound to other people?

Oh my goodness. I should never open my mouth again.

The girl in her is puzzled by how she could have possibly aged so much.

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The girl in her did not know at first that being addressed as “Young lady!”, as in “Now, what would you like, young lady?” and “Bill, this young lady here would like an Amaretto Sour!” is actually a sign that you have passed a certain age threshold. People assume that you ought to be grateful for the subtle compliment.

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She gives herself a long, uncomprehending look sometimes when she walks by office buildings with glass walls.

The girl in her is surprised by the unfamiliar physique when she looks in the mirror.

Who is that middle-aged woman? If I feel like a P.Y.T. then who is this matron with thick arms and middle bulge?

The girl in her saw the repulsion in her husband’s eyes. Just for a fleeting second. But too late. She’s seen it. You cannot unsee it.

The girl in her says, with defiance, Wow. It kind of sucks to be you because I am not changing myself for anybody but myself.

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The girl in her does not know how to navigate space in real life now that she can no longer be classified as slender as her younger self.

It is as if her spatial sensory has never evolved with how her body has evolved. She keeps on bumping into corners. Door frames.

When she looks at pretty young things, she thinks to herself: Yup. I can look good in that too. Imagining her 18-year-old body in the same polka-dotted sundress.

The girl in her forgets that she no longer enjoys the luxury of youth and therefore is no longer as attractive as she remembers. This is not self pity. This is the truth as told by time.

The girl in her behaves as if she were still young and attractive and therefore she winks and smiles as one would.

Sometimes people see the sparkle.

Sometimes people don’t and are therefore startled by a not-so-slim not-so-young woman carrying herself as a young beautiful woman would.

The girl in her is saddened and disappears when she recognizes the startled look in people’s eyes.

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The girl in her never really leaves. She sits by the wing. On a stool next to the stage manager’s, waiting for her cues.

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The girl in her sometimes wonder when it will become inappropriate, or whether it will ever, should ever, to swing your arms while walking because you feel happy, or want to fabricate the sensation of happiness.

To look forward to a rainy day so you could walk around holding the umbrella as if it were a sword: palm open and up, with the blade pointing up and the sword against your back, and  envision yourself as a swordswoman, wandering and righting the wrongs in the world.

To dance in the rain.

To breathe deeply in the smell of rain. Fresh-cut grass. And let out a loud Ahhhhhhh——-

To roll down the hill.

To skip.

To be barefoot.

To jump in a puddle.

To say the word, Puddle, her favorite word, out loud for no reason because she likes the sound of it.

To talk to random strangers, and wink at them.

To flirt shamelessly.

To jump up and down while clapping your hands when you are excited.

To take off your shoes and throw them into the tree.

Just because.

To behave as if you had not aged since you turned 18.

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This is how she sees herself when she closes her eyes.

This is how she sees herself when her eyes are wide open, as a matter of fact.

Sometimes this is the only thing that feels real.

The girl in her.

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That’s right, peeps. I’ve got you all FREE Slurpees AND a Solar Eclipse on my birthday because that’s how I roll…

You do need to get to the Southern Pacific Ocean in order to view the Solar Eclipse though you will thank me when you are staring at your own feet taking a sip from a tropical drink with an umbrella on top.

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Outings for Slurpees at 7-Eleven have been a cheap thrill for my kids, so maybe the less mobile amongst you can take advantage of this other FREE gift that I have got you. It is a great family bonding ritual. And you don’t know how awesome the brain freeze you get from a Slurpee can be until you watch this video.

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I am pretty sure there is no added hallucinogenic inside Slurpees. They are simply awesome on their own.

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Perhaps sharing the same “birthday” with 7 Eleven has made me partial to this chain store since I was little. It does not hurt that 7 Eleven is one of the ubiquitous convenience stores in Taiwan. Where my parents used to live, there were three 7 Eleven’s within easy walking distance. Where they live now? There is one right outside the alley. And this IS perfectly normal. In fact, it is expected:

“Boasting more than 9,100 convenience stores in an area of 35,980 km² and a population of 23 million, Taiwan has Asia Pacific’s and perhaps the world’s highest density of convenience stores per person: one store per 2,500 people… With 4,665 7-Eleven stores, Taiwan also has the world’s highest density of 7-Elevens per person: one store per 4,930 people.” (Source: What else? Wikipedia of course)

The amount and array of goods you can find inside a 7 Eleven in Taiwan is astounding, especially the food. Drinks. Snacks. HOT food: Dim sum. Steamed buns. Bentos. Tea eggs. Hot dogs. For Chinese New Year, they even “cater” the entire meal of 10 courses!  Whenever we visit my folks in Taipei, visiting 7 Eleven becomes a daily ritual. The boys, all three of them, have a great time figuring out which beverages out of the 158,826 varieties will be better than the last one they enjoyed.

Because the corporation that owns the 7 Eleven franchise in Taiwan also owns a large bookstore chain, you can order books online and pick them up from your local 7 Eleven, quite often on the very next day! In fact, you can pay all the municipal fees such as water, gas, electricity, parking fees, traffic violation and parking fines, telephone bills, credit card balances at your local 7 Eleven and any other convenience store.

They put the CONVENIENCE back in Convenience Stores.

More than anything though, 7 Eleven aspires to being a people pleaser. Wow. Sounds like somebody I know! Your local 7 Eleven strives to have available anything that you could ask for: spirits, courage, a star, a good feeling, and they will bag it for you…

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That’s what I would like for my birthday. A good feeling bagged to go.

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There. You did it again.

Remember in the movie Gremlins? No water. No food after midnight. And of course the rules were immediately broken, WTF that nobody EVER EVER listens to those who live in Chinatown? Seriously? monsters were created and hijinks ensued.

Do not feed a closeted egomaniac.

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You never heed the warning.

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Blame this raging Navel Gazing post on Silvia @ A Bourbon for Silvia and Trish @ Patty Punker. They gave me water and fed me food after midnight. So to speak…

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So after they broke the feeding rules, they now want ME, the monster they have created, to follow some rules… Fine. You have to at least obey your own Dr. Frankenstein(s), eh?

1. Thank the person who gave you the award.

If you have never visited A Bourbon for Silvia, please do. “From here – Under the water” is one of my favorite posts. Ever. It makes you want to go skinny dipping. Not in a drunken teenager and Imma gonna live to regret it way. But in a good, self-realization way.

If you have never visited Patty Punker, please do. She has a foul mouth and is proud of it. But underneath that hardness is one of the softest and truest heart. (Now she’s going to kick my ass for saying this about her…) Her “wtf work bathrooms” is epic. She’s my kind of working woman.

2. List 7 things about yourself your readers do not know.

Awww. You want me to talk about myself? No. I can’t possibly. I clearly do not like to talk about myself and that’s why I have a friggin’ blog!

3. Award 5 bloggers who you’ve recently discovered.

Well, this has to wait until I am done talking about myself! Because this post is all about me. ME. ME!!!!!

*Cue maniacal evil laughter* <— For real. Do NOT click if you are at work!

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It took me a while to come up with things that I have not shared with you already…

• Ok ok. This is a good one: I am an oversharer. And then I feel guilty for oversharing because I don’t want to burden people with my oversharing. Rinse and repeat.
• I am full of contradictions. I am a Closeted Extrovert and a Closeted Introvert rolled into one. Implosion any minute now.
• I am hormonal all the friggin’ time. I swear I am affected by the movement of the orbiting Moon.  I never fake cry. I can force myself to cry. And when I cry, it is for real.
• This is going to make me sound crazy, but I am the most self-deprecating egomaniac ever. EVER!
• Like Patty Punker and Wicked Shawn, I *heart* polka dots, so much so that I created a tumblr dedicated to polka dots in May.
• I may have minor OCD, as evidenced by my obsession with going through ALL pictures with polka dots in them on google (current count: ~5,900,000). Once I start a task, I cannot stop until I am done. The way I deal with this? Start nothing. Can you see how blogging is seriously affecting my mental health? There is no end in sight to this thing!
• I am cynical and gullible at the same time. Or maybe I am just an idiot who has been lucky so far. My brother once told me that he could hear the music by twirling a cassette tape with a pen through one of the holes. I believed him. I was in junior high then, and coincidentally I was the Valedictorian-equivalent in my class.

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Sadly, the time alloted for me to talk about myself, again, has come to an end, today. Now on to passing this award on to five beautiful human beings I have recently met…

Ok. Pause. One more thing you need to know about me…

• I suffer panic attack whenever I need to do something like this: choosing, and by this act of choosing, excluding others. THIS has got to be the hardest part for me as a blogger. If I read your blogs, that means I think you are beautiful inside and out. I have very limited time so I am very selective. I may not be by for a while but it is because I have decided to have more sex. Or the attempts any way…
• Another thing you need to know about me: I am a sneaky bugger. I have figured out that if you tell people you cannot do something because you need to have sex, people will understand. Oh god, please do not let my kids read this. Or my blog in general.

*Cue maniacal evil laughter* <— Seriously. Do NOT click if you are at work!

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Here are five of the beautiful bloggers that I would like to introduce you to, if you didn’t know them already:

Mature Landscaping – Southern and liberal. Come on. You know you want a piece of it!

IslandRoar – I swear it is because she is a good writer and not some ulterior motive for being invited to Martha’s Vineyard one day…

Fuck Yeah, Motherhood! – Anybody that uses single motherhood and long-hour job as an excuse for not parenting well should read this blog. She makes it sound so easy even though you know it cannot be easy.

here where i have landed – She came from Asia to the US around the same time I did. She lives in beautiful downtown Chicago. She is a working mom. Not hard to see why I lurv her, eh?

Bar Mitzvahzilla – Jewish and liberal in Arizona. She is fighting a good fight there!

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How do you know you have arrived? How about if google celebrates your birthday with a special google logo in honor of your birthday?

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If you can look past the unibrow and the mustache, Frida Kahlo was one heck of an attractive woman exactly because she exudes confidence and willful neglect for rules of all sorts. She swore all the time, hosted wild parties, sang loudly and told dirty jokes at those parties. By all accounts, she was vibrant, magnetic, despite the pains she lived with, not some metaphysical angst that artists are often plagued with (though I suspect that she experienced that too), but real, physical pains.

She was in a catastrophic bus accident and the damages she suffered included, the worst part, an iron handrail piercing her abdomen, breaking her spinal column in three places and then exiting through her pelvis.

Thus started her tumultuous and fascinating life as an artist who became one of the most prolific painters of her lifetime.

It is ironic that she seemed to be one of the most liberated people, one of the very few who were truly free, when all her life she was plagued with physical pain and suffering.

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Guess which one is the young Frida Kahlo?

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Her own words on why and how she painted are especially resonating as she is remembered today. On her 103rd birthday.

I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.

I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

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And in all honesty, the following is my favorite. God, you’ve got to love this woman!

They are so damn “intellectual” and rotten that I can’t stand them anymore… I [would] rather sit on the floor in the market of Toluca and sell tortillas, than have anything to do with those “artistic” bitches of Paris.

– on the European surrealists and specifically Andre Breton in a letter to Nickolas Muray (1939)

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The Monster Birthday Month Bash continues…

July 3rd.

Happy Birthday to Franz Kafka, Dave Barry, and one Thomas Cruise Mapother IV aka Tom Cruise.

Kafka is dead. Cruise will live forever.

Dave Barry used to be funny. Tom Cruise is still scary.

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My oldest’s gymnastics practice is right by where the Hometown Fest carnival is taking place. Last night when I drove to the gym, I was able to drive past the police barricade with the obvious excuse of picking my child up and park right next to the carnival. As in, HERE is the parking spot. 30 steps later. Oh lookee here, we are at the carnival!

I am always appreciative of an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime parking spot, mindful of the hapless souls circling the residential area looking for a spot within a humane radius we encountered along the way.  Naturally we went back to the carnival again tonight. We had to. You simply CANNOT waste a good parking spot like that. It’s bad karma.

The carnival on Friday night was a completely different beast than the one we saw on Thursday night. The one on Thursday night was docile, leisurely. Carefree. And sober. The carnival I went to last night was frantic, full of teenage angst, yet at the same time going through midlife crisis. Everyone older than 21 apparently had one drink or more.

Who says suburban life is all repression? We let our inner demons out once every year, under the watchful eyes of carnival workers.

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FREE BIRD!

I am pretty sure whoever taught me about the historical significance of shouting FREE BIRD at a concert regretted it. This random act of kindness has created a monster who yells out FREE BIRD! whenever she has the guts and chance. Probably done inappropriately 50% of the time. But I LOVE bellowing out, FREE BIRD! because it makes me feel… I don’t know, intrinsically American. Like a secret handshake that someone was kind enough to show me. Perhaps I imagined this, but I swear that as soon as people heard me shouting FREE BIRD! — even at the most inopportune times — they no longer see me as foreign, despite the accent. I became, instead of standing out like a sore thumb, instantly one of the in-crowd. It’s like a code. I have cracked the code. One of them anyway.

It’s no wonder why I am fascinated by American pop culture and see it as a personal imperative to understand all pop culture references known to man. These are little bits of mosaic puzzles for becoming American.

The same can be said of

“We need more cowbell!”

“These pretzels are making me thirsty!”

“420″

These however are more esoteric pop culture references that need to be used and appreciated by specific audiences.

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Every time I walk into a room, I integrate.

Every time I walk into a room, I represent.

At least that’s how I feel. On some days, it makes me feel empowered and shit. On the others, it just makes me feel like shit.

Last night at the carnival was one of the better days.

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The July 4th carnival is where I get to see the real Americans.

Not the over-educated, pampered, (forced to be) politically correct, self-conscious people I have chosen and am able to surround myself with, including affording a house in a certain type of neighborhood. There is no need for me to prove my American-ness to these people. They should know better. They have all agreed to live with multiculturalism, no matter how begrudgingly. That’s part of the baggage of being the bourgeois. They have signed the contract.

The kind of real Americans I imagined I would have met if I ever drove down Route 66.

Naturally, when I make such a statement, I am seeing the “natives” as exotic creatures from the perspective of a tourist.

At the Hometown Fest, I felt schizophrenic: on one hand, more than ever, being outside of my usual comfort zone (home, work, home, work), I sensed that my foreignness was on display. After all, it is Hometown Fest, not Tourist Town. Insiders only.

On the other hand, as I chugged down my third beer, sweet-talked the carnival guy into giving the kids a bigger prize (yes, I used “the wink”), watched the kids having an all-out battle with inflatable hammers and inflatable baseball bats against a football player who looked like a stereotypical football player whose girlfriend affectionately called the “meat head”, joked with the said girlfriend who looked like a stereotypical (former) cheerleader and Queen Bee, chitchatted with random bystanders, and in general, hung out, I felt “vindicated”. Strangely at home. I have hit the motherload: the real Americans, the ones who did not have to be nice or be politically correct or be tolerant and shit, thought I was just one of the regular Joes. I have managed to sneak past through the door and now I am looking from the inside out. I am one of the townies.

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On second thought, maybe not completely 100% townie. Not yet. At least, not until I attend one of these…

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I never ever got to celebrate my birthday in style. In fact, I have the urge to dig a hole and bury my head in it when my birthday is approaching, not because I dread getting one year older but that I worry about being disappointed.

I am disappointed every year. That is why I am all nonchalant about the whole birthday thing.

I turned 40 last July. Yup. Missed the opportunity to make a big to-do out of mah birthday. But this year? This year is going to be different. This year I have a blog. And it is my blog, I’ll have an extravaganza if I want to.

So are you ready, Loren Sorenson?  You and I are going to party every day in July. Every Single Fucking Day. Heehaw!

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July 1st.

There is a lot to celebrate on July 1st.

Happy Birthday, Scary Mommy!

Happy Birthday, Estee Lauder, Sydney Pollack (RIP my good sir!), Dan Aykroyd, Liv Tyler, and one Pamela Anderson.

Happy happy day to my company and everybody who has paid their dues slaving away there!

Happy Some-Significant-Day to one of my favorite peoples in the world. Happy Canada Day!

(warning: I am not responsible if you cannot get the catchy tune out of your head)

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What is an extravaganza if we do not start it off with a bang?! What better way to start off any celebration than a Hometown Fest Carnival**? Complete with an Elvis Impersonator named Bob Elvis West?

Every Fourth of July weekend, I am forced to admit that No, we do not live in Chicago. We live in the Midwest, y’all. We live in a down-to-earth Midwestern town where all the blonde people with cigarettes hanging out the corners of their mouths seem to congregate at the carnival.

July truly is my lucky month because tonight, all the carnival people were very nice to me. I’d like to think it’s because I said thank you and please.

I went on some of the not-so-scary rides with the boys, and boy, the scariest of them all was the rotating bears in the ride called Bear Affair. (I can’t even make this shit up!) Mr. Monk had a great time making the bear we were riding in rotate at the speed of light by maniacally turning the table in the center. I became so dizzy that I had to close my eyes, leaning against Mr. Bear’s steely hollow body. It felt like being drunk but I didn’t have a single drop of alcohol tonight. I was high without any assistance. Yes, I have the ability to self-medicate. That’s one of my Secret Super Powers, peeps.

I put my hands up when we were on one of the rides that does nothing but go around and around really fast, first clockwise, then counter-clockwise. I screamed like a MoFo. It felt good. It felt really good. Later when Mr. Monk asked to get on the same ride again, I did not protest too much. Half way through the ride, some of the children were yelling loudly at the carnival worker, “Music please!” since earlier the ride was quite popular exactly because it was blasting all the popular teenybopper songs that every other child seemed to be lip-syncing to. I joined in loudly, “Music please! We want some Justin Beaver!” The kids sitting in front of me turned around with astonished looks and immediately, smiles. Yeah, right at that moment, we connected: me and two 10-year-olds. As we sped past by the control booth, I yelled louder, “FREE BIRD!”, and for safe measure, gave him the Hang Loose hand sign.

I did that every time I flew by the control booth. I did that again as he let me out of the exit.

My kids did not seem to notice my high spirits and odd behaviors because they themselves were psyched by the carnival. They were not embarrassed by me which in itself was a blessing.

It was a cool and cloudless night. A perfect evening. And we got a perfect ending for it to boot: As we made our way back to the car, we noticed the canopy of stars.

“Look! That’s the Big Dipper!” My 12-year-old shouted. Sure ’nuff the seven stars were right above us, clear as day, in the formation of a, eh, big dipper. It is July after all when the night sky is dominated by the Big Dipper.

What we saw tonight, exactly like this

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Is my birthday month awesome or what? Prepare to see unicorns, y’all!

** I’ve got pictures. This entire month is going to be picture-rich because I have decided to give myself a hobby… Damn it. Everybody needs a hobby and I am tired of writing down “reading, listening to music and going to the movies”. LAME-O! I will post the pictures tomorrow, which is today, which is supposed to be July 1st but of course it is taking a friggin’ long time to resize the pictures and upload them, and it is 3:30 am now on July 2nd but of course I need to officially start mah Birthday Month on July 1st… So you’ll just have to wait for tomorrow, no, today, and this post is supposed to be for yesterday…

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Who’d have thought that a post titled “Warning: Do Not Read This If You Are My Husband” would pique my husband’s interest? The man normally does not read my blog posts. He is content to read the ones I forward to his email inbox. But I forgot that he does read my tweets, esp. when he is trapped on the runway after landing. So out of the blue I received this IM from him:

“Cocoon? WTF? LOL!”

BUSTED! Ugh.

This weekend as we sat through the previews before the movie started, he commented as if he were merely continuing a discussion that happened just minutes ago, “I cannot believe you did not include Daniel Day-Lewis!  Wasn’t he in The Unbearable Lightness of Being?” which was based on my favorite book by Milan Kundera.

“Well, I did not want to have sex with Tomas because he is an unfaithful womanizer!” So it is true: I ended up choosing the “five fictional characters that I would gladly hump” based on the potential of their leading a Happily Ever After with me. So predictable. So stereotypically… eh… woman.

“Well. I still think you should have included Daniel Day-Lewis on your list.”

“I will find you!” I blurted out the greatest line from The Last of the Mohicans as I remembered how hawt Hawkeye is. Hawt and loyal. Which just make him so much hotter.

We looked at each other and made an ill attempt to recite, “I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you,” the line that brings me to tears every time I think of it. I swooned from the vision of Hawkeye behind that waterfall.

“See? I told you. You should have included him on your list.”

“FINE! If you are so good at it, why don’t you go make your own list?”

Next thing I knew, he had a pad of paper on his lap and a pencil poised in mid-air, looking rather pensive. He put down Number 1 without any hesitation and then jumped to Number 3. This man KNEW who Number 3 on his list should be. Seriously?! As he was stuck on Number 2, the movie we were watching was wasted on him.

Served me right for forgetting that I was dealing with a compulsive list maker. There are pieces of paper with miscellaneous lists scribbled on them hidden all over the house. Too bad he is not a compulsive task finisher. Just sayin’…

Here is the list (the original email text even!) as painstakingly put together by my husband, with my approval. The man has great taste after all… *cough cough* though I was a bit sad that Jessica Rabbit did not make the list.

1. Catherine-Zeta Jones in Entrapment (if you have seen the movie, you know the scene)
2. Gymnast in Blue Thunder
3. Jessica Alba in Dark Angel
4. Michelle Pfieffer as Catwoman, or LadyHawke.
5. Devil’s Advocate — the one Al Pacino wants Keanu to lay at the end… (Christabella, played by Connie Nielson)

Groups
1. The girls of Austin Powers (all three at once) (Elizabeth Hurley, Heather Graham, Beyonce)
2. The Fly girls from In Living Color

If you are scratching your head wondering about the “Gymnast”, no worries. The man was thoughtful enough to include a link to a self-explanatory photo:

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Kind of NSFW…

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Nothing is really showing…

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May also make you feel very bad about yourself…

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Or make you hot and bothered…

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You have been forewarned…

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"This is what you do when you have a super duper high-tech helicopter: You hover outside of buildings where there are naked women doing aerobics."

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Oh man. I should have written this post Thursday night or Friday early morning when I was still riding the high from being at a live taping of my favorite radio program, Wait Wait Don’t Tell me. Instead I am suffering from the backend of the pendulum swing, crashing hard, filled with doubt and self-loathing.

This is a confession from a self-proclaimed dweeb, dork, geek-lover, fangirl, star-struck middle-aged woman who behaved age-inappropriately on Thursday night.

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1. Stuff that I said about how I never develop crush on celebrities? Total baloney, it turned out. I had the biggest grin on my face and was giggling like an idiot the whole time I was getting autographs from Peter Sagal, Carl Kasell, Charlie Pierce, and Paula Poundstone. (Roxanne Roberts left by the time we finished our “shopping spree” at the Wait Wait “Shameless Commerce Department” -- a homage to another popular NPR program, Car Talk).

I am going to chalk it up to these brilliant people being so humble and so gracious that I could not but be awestruck by their total awesomeness.

I was also giddy from being swept up by the “camaraderie” in the auditorium. It really does feel incredible to be surrounded by like-minded people. For a second, I thought I could understand why the teabaggers go to tea parties.

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2. I was so star-struck. I didn’t even care that I failed to bring a “real” camera with me. Just being there was good enough for me.

What a fucking idiot was I? Who went to an event of a lifetime and did not even think of bringing their camera?

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3. Yes, my friend and I bought a lot of souvenirs. Well, Linda had to buy something for everybody she knows: lucky woman. She is surrounded by people who actually would kill her if she went to the Wait Wait taping without bringing home something for them.

Me? Not so lucky. Probably would have been more like a taunt if I gave my co-worker Idiot America by Charlie Pierce.

“Awesome! This is like Disneyland for Liberals!” I exclaimed with 100% sincerity.

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4. I stumbled forward when it was my turn to talk to Peter Sagal.

“Hi. I brought my own sharpie! This is like Disneyland for the Liberals!!! Ha ha ha.”

Peter. Silence. He might have raised his eyebrow.

“Who is this book for?”

“ME!” I might have squeed. Definitely giggled. A lot.

Peter. Silence. He might have raised his eyebrow.

“May I take a picture of you?” I added, out of breath, “I’ll just Photoshop myself in later.”

Bad habit of mine: pathological need to be funny when I am nervous.

Peter. Silence. He did give my phone a great smile.

Peter Sagal. THAT is a smile, right?

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5. Although Peter Sagal was my fangirl fanmatron crush, it was beyond cool to see Carl Kasell in person.

It was surreal to WATCH Carl introducing Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me…

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6. Carl, as I had imagined, was very gentlemanly and very gracious. While I was getting an autograph from Carl, Charlie Pierce said in his booming voice, “Somebody here must have done some shopping!” I looked up just as he noticed his book in my arm.

“Good. Let me come over and sign that book for you!”

Yipeee! In my mind, I jumped up and down while clapping my hands.

“I am sure Carl and I can multitask!” Charlie said, as he took the book from me.

“Would you mind if I take a picture of both of ya together? I’ll just Photoshop myself in later…”

Serisouly, dude. Enough with the stupid joke already…

“Sure. I don’t think Carl and I have ever had our pictures taken together before!”

“Cool! I hope this does not mean [insert failed attempt at coming up with some apocalyptic phenomenon to show how witty I was in front of friggin' Carl Kesell and Charlie Pierce. Smooth. Very smooth].”

Carl & Charlie. Together. Squee!

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7. I lurv Charlie Pierce. Even more so after I read the introduction to his book, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free.

Actually he had me at the title of his book. But oh wow, the blurb for this book made me cry out YES YES YES!

“The Culture Wars Are Over and the Idiots Have Won.

A veteran journalist’s acidically funny, righteously angry lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States.

With Idiot America, Pierce’s thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated.”

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Charlie walked over to the other end of the auditorium when he learned that he hasn’t signed Linda’s copy. With Linda there, I finally had the courage to ask to have my picture taken with my crush.

“Do you want me to send you the picture?”

“Sure!”

“Give me your address so I can send it to you! Ha ha.”

Oh, I am having a heart attack remembering this while I type. Ugh.

Charlie had his arms on both of us. Squee!

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8. Although the taping is live, the show when aired will have already been edited. It’s very interesting to watch them doing the retakes.

This clip shows Carl doing a retake of “GGGGOOOOAAAALLLLL” in honor of World Cup.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zaBx9R2Yk8

It is unfortunate that I failed to successfully record and save the first “GGGOOOOAAAAALLLL” Carl did. He must have gone on for longer than a minute  (It felt like forever) and the audience was screaming and whooping and pumping our fists (Ok, maybe I was the only one that did the fist pumping since the audience was more refined than say at a rock concert…) His face turned red towards the end: I was so worried that he was going to pass out!

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9. Things I would not have learned about Peter Sagal if I were not there on Thursday:

• He was a snake charmer in Michael Jackson’s video Remember the Time. Unfortunately it was left out of the final cut.
• Peter DID shake hands with MJ. And, according to Peter, “shared a moment.”
• He was an extra in Drew Barrymore’s movie Doppelganger in 1993.

Here is the video clip (taken with my Blackberry so apology for poor quality) of Peter disclosing his stellar resume in the entertainment industry.

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10. Paula Poundstone was the funniest. And the most gracious. For starters, Paula said matter-of-factly, “Listen to three kids whine” when asked what she will be doing this summer.

I am having such a girl crush on her as I relive my “time with her.”

We had to wait to meet Paula Poundstone because she actually talked with every single person that asked for her autograph. When it was my turn, the excitement of the night has made me completely lose my mind. I could not stop laughing.

She wrote, “Lin, May things always strike you funny. Love.”

For 24 hours I have been replaying our exchange frame by frame, tormenting myself, wondering whether she thought I LAUGHED too much. Now I saw the word, “LOVE”. I am just going to take it literally. Paul loves me. Period. Life can go on again.

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11. Linda wanted the book to be for her mother-in-law, so Paula wrote, “Linda kept on yelling out things about you during the show.”

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12. Linda told Paula her name is “Lin-da”, so I said, “And I went without the Duh,” which took Paula by surprise. She paused, thought about it, and chuckled.

PAULA POUNDSTONE LAUGHED AT MY STUPID JOKE!

BOO-YAH!

Did I tell you I have developed a crush on Paula?

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The Kitchen Witch tagged me for an interesting exercise…

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No tan lines?!

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Clarification: A writing/blogging exercise. Not the kind of exercise being vigorously practiced by Barbie and Ken as shown in the photo.

“If tagged, you need to list (and then explain your reasoning) 5 characters you’d like to do the horizontal whiplash with,” according to the bewitchin’ lady lording over the Kingdom of Cookery.

As an over-thinker and an anti-over-sharer when it comes to businesses in my own bedroom, I have been ruminating and debating on my choices.

Digression: Alas, this sort of explains why no fireworks are coming out of my bedroom, or my crotch for that matter. (Hey, I figure I need to throw you some TMIs so you won’t cry foul…)

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I am embarrassed to say, yet obviously not embarrassed enough to lie about it, the first character that came to my mind was…

Father Ralph de Bricassart in The Thorn Birds. Do you remember this popular mini-series in the 1980s? Richard Chamberlain played the tortured priest? Man oh man, for a young teenage girl in Taiwan, that show had some of the most erotic, passionate scenes I was able to witness.

Digression: Ok, my mother did bring me to The Blue Lagoon with Brooke Shields by mistake. Fortunately for my mother, I was too dumb young to understand any of it. The realization of what goes on in that movie came to me out of the blue one day while I was sitting in the classroom in COLLEGE. I went, “Ohhhhhhh………. I got it!”

Forbidden love between a Catholic priest and an impressionable young girl whom he had known since she was four? COME ON! How hot is THAT?

This was of course before the world learned of the prevalanec of child abuse conducted by the Catholic clergy.  Looking back now.  YIKES. I think I really did throw up in my mouth when I watched again, for the purpose of researching for this post (Seriously, the sacrifice I make for you guys…), the long awaited consummation between Meggie (Rachel Ward) and her relationship with Father Ralph.

The following scene, in 1983, was called “the most erotic love scene ever to ignite the home screen.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc0bF2HMP_E

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Mr. Rochester in the BBC Mini Series, Jane Eyre, played by Timothy Dalton. Another one of my earliest fantasies. This was before Dalton had the misfortune of being James Bond for two measly Bond films and immediately became UNCOOL because almost everybody hated him as Bond.

Mr Rochester

This mini-series was also  aired in 1983. I am now convinced that 1983 was a watershed year for me. The year of my sexual awakening. Now that explains the sudden urge to pee when I watched these mini-series. “Ohhhhhhh………. I got it!”

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So… to begin answering the question for realz… I have to start with Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. I don’t know why: I seem to have a thing in my fantasy for the aloof yet secretly passionate and protective type.

And I was VERY happy with BBC’s adaptation in 1995 with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy.

Mr. Darcy

A dripping wet Mr. Darcy. This is a bit too much IMO.

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To further prove that I have a thing for aloof yet secretly passionate and protective type, the one character that gets my panties really really wet is the vampire Bill Compton from The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris. Oh my lord. I have never ever read romance novels except these books. And oh my lord, let me exclaim again, they are bordering on porn, or at least my over-imaginative mind received similar amount and severity of stimulation from reading these pages.

And it’s not just Bill the Vampire. All of Sookie Stackhouse’s lovers are hump-worthy on the pages: Eric Northman, a vampire that is depicted like a Nordic god, a viking in his past life, with a gorgeous body built like rock and an insatiable appetite for “fun”. Her third conquest, Quinn, is a friggin’ “SPOILER POTENTIAL so I cannot say what kind of animal he is here”! It suffices to say that whichever animal Quinn is, the sex scene as penned by Harris definitely lives up to the said animal’s reputation. Grrrrrrrr….

I read the first six books in the series non-stop last year when we were on the beach for a week. I was addicted. Obsessed. Like a sex fiend. Only came up for air when reality called.

There I was, sitting on the beach in bright daylight, between my mother-in-law and my father-in-law, surround by screaming happy children, reading these words: (And mind you, I am leaving out the MORE explicit parts in this paragraph…)

As I squirmed uncomfortably in my beach chair, I wondered why there was not a sticker on these books (or on any of the romance novels…) and whether anybody could tell that I was being aroused…

“His fingers and his mouth were busy learning my topography, and he pressed heavily against my thigh. I was so on fire for him I was surprised that flames didn’t flicker out of my finger tips. I curled my fingers around him and stroked… I reached between us to put him at just the right spot… I tried to yank him back, but he began kissing his way down my body… His mouth was talented… he turned his face to my inner thigh, muzzling it, his fingers moving steadily now, faster and faster…”

Oooo child. I need to go take a break. Be right back.

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I’m bbbbaaacccckkkkkk! Thanks for waiting. That wasn’t long, was it? So where was I?…

Of course, HBO later, much to the dismay of my panties, adapted these books into the cultish True Blood. Oh yeah, baby. Bill you can bite me any day. Or night for that matter.

Bill Compton: the Un-Vampire from True Blood

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As I am coming… to the end of this post, I want to be really really really honest with y’all. Like 120% honest: I fantasized about having sex with one of the aliens from the movie Cocoon. I don’t even care that the object of my lust shown in the following clip is female so I may be entering the realm of homoeroticism inadvertently. I am pretty sure these aliens can assume any shape they want to be. Maybe I’ll ask that the alien morphs into Mr. Darcy.

Yes. I am lazy. Didn’t I tell you that? I love how in this fantasy of mine a la Cocoon I do not need to do anything. Not even lift a finger. Nada. Oh man. I am excited just thinking about doing absolutely nothing.

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The best part of this award? I get to pass the award along and tag the others to play this game so I can live through your fantasies vicariously. (Yeah, I know. That makes me an uber loser for having to live my fantasies through your fantasies…).  What I really wanted to do here is to copy and paste my entire blogroll.  Instead, I am going to beg you, implore you, beseech you, “puppy eye assault” you to go ahead, accept this award, own this challenge and write about the five characters that give you that “tinkling” feeling. Or please share by leaving a comment.

In addition, I’m going to round up the usual suspects who I assume would DELIGHT in such an opportunity to talk about the objects of their sexual fantasies. PLEASE DO consider this as my sincere adoration rather than an accusation, ladies! Yes, my darlings. I am putting you on the spot. The G Spot.

Andrea @ A Little Bit Rock n Roll

Gorgeous @ A Vapid Blonde

Elly @ Buggin Word

Mrs. Sexy @ Mrs. BlogAlot

Mary @ Pajamas and Coffee

Patty @ Patty Punker

She who is “NOT Kaiser Sose. Spartacus. or Your father” @ The Sky Is Falling

And I seriously would have been the most egregiously remiss if I did not tag Wicked Shawn @ Wicked Girls Think It for this one.

I think we are all in for a treat.

*Rubs hands* EXCELLENT!

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